NRC Study Committee, A science-based look at genetically engineered crops, Washington, DC

1. Slide 1 — © Scheufele 2014
PUBLIC INTERFACES OF GMOS
Dietram A. Scheufele
John E. Ross Professor
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences
University of Wisconsin—Madison
@scheufele
Center for Nanotechnology in Society
Arizona State University
NRC Study Committee, A science-based look at
genetically engineered crops, Washington, DC, September 15, 2014

2. Slide 2 — © Scheufele 2014 TODAY
 The need to go beyond the “science” of GMOs
 Public interfaces of GMOs: How people make
decisions about controversial science
 The NAS “Public Interfaces of the Life Sciences”
Roundtable as a resource for this committee?

3. Slide 3 — © Scheufele 2014 THE “POLITICIZED” SCIENCE OF GMOS

4. Slide 4 — © Scheufele 2014
GMOS AS POST-NORMAL SCIENCE
 Complex science
 Fast bench-bedside transition
 Most importantly, ELSI debates
without scientific answers

5. Slide 5 — © Scheufele 2014 TODAY
 The need to go beyond the “science” of GMOs
 Public interfaces of GMOs: How people make
decisions about controversial science
 The NAS “Public Interfaces of the Life Sciences”
Roundtable as a resource for this committee?

6. Slide 6 — © Scheufele 2014
A MODEL THAT IS BOUND TO FAIL
FOR THIS COMMITTEE / REPORT
 Different labels
 Knowledge deficit models
 Familiarity hypothesis
 etc.
 Assumption
 If people were only more informed, they
would be more supportive of science
 Effective communication is about explaining
the science better
 Unfortunately
 Little empirical support …

7. Slide 7 — © Scheufele 2014
IN FACT, THE SAME INFORMATION
MEANS DIFFERENT THINGS TO ALL OF US
Cacciatore, M. A., Binder, A. R., Scheufele, D. A., & Shaw, B. R. (2013). Public attitudes toward biofuels: Effects of knowledge, political
partisanship, and media use. Politics and the Life Sciences, 31(1-2), 36-51. doi: 10.2990/31_1-2_36.
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
-0.5
-1
-1.5
-2
Democrats (TV)
Democrats (Newspaper)
Republicans (TV)
Republicans (Newspaper)
Low High
benefit vs. risk perceptions
(Scale range partially displayed)
Biofuels economic
News Attention

8. Slide 8 — © Scheufele 2014
SO HOW DO WE MAKE SENSE OF
COMPLEX SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION?
Scheufele, D. A. (2006). Messages and heuristics: How audiences form attitudes about emerging technologies. In J. Turney (Ed.),
Engaging science: Thoughts, deeds, analysis and action (pp. 20-25). London: The Wellcome Trust.
 Two key principles
 Cognitive misers
 Low information rationality
 Shortcuts, heuristics, etc. become powerful
replacements or shortcuts when faced
choices about complex scientific issues or
resulting policy options

9. Slide 9 — © Scheufele 2014 ONE EXAMPLE: FRAMES SERVE AS
POWERFUL INFORMATION SHORTCUTS
Scheufele, D. A. (1999). Framing as a theory of media effects. Journal of Communication, 49(1), 103-122.
The Atlantic Monthly (October 2003)

10. Slide 10 — © Scheufele 2014 BUT FRAMING ALSO ALLOWS AUDIENCES TO
CATEGORIZE UNFAMILIAR INFORMATION
Tewksbury, D., & Scheufele, D. A. (2009). News framing theory and research. In J. Bryant & M. B. Oliver (Eds.),
Media effects: Advances in theory and research (3rd ed., pp. 17-33). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
 But they are also important tools
to help audiences
 determine why an issue is
important
 efficiently process new
information by connecting it to
what we already know
 There is no such thing as
unframed information …

11. Slide 11 — © Scheufele 2014 TODAY
 The need to go beyond the “science” of GMOs
 Public interfaces of GMOs: How people make
decisions about controversial science
 The NAS “Public Interfaces of the Life Sciences”
Roundtable as a resource for this committee?

12. Slide 12 — © Scheufele 2014
NAS ROUNDTABLE ON PUBLIC INTERFACES
OF THE LIFE SCIENCES (PILS)
 Created in 2013 within DELS
 Monitors life science-public interfaces for
topics that have potential to
 spark public concerns
 generate policy debates or
 influence market dynamics
 etc.
 Two main convening activities
 Panel discussions
 Public workshops

13. Slide 13 — © Scheufele 2014
UPCOMING WORKSHOP ON
PUBLIC INTERFACES RELATED TO GMOS
 January 15 & 16, 2015, NAS Keck Center
 Preliminary agenda
 Part 1: State of the social science on
GMOs as scientific and sociopolitical issue
 Part 2: Best (existing) practices for public
interfaces of GMOs
 Part 3: Workshop on concrete, new ways
of improving public interfaces
 Hope this will be a useful resource for many
members of this committee …

14. Slide 14 — © Scheufele 2014
ONE LAST THOUGHT ON THE
PROBLEM OF SCOPE FOR YOUR COMMITTEE
 For GMOs, public spotlight has been on
variety of scientific, but also economic,
ethical, and political concerns
 Drunkard’s search dilemma
 In order to be perceived as credible, the
report will have to
 discuss ELSI concerns, and
 examine to which degree science can
or cannot provide answers to them

15. Slide 15 — © Scheufele 2014 THANK YOU
For more information on PILS Roundtable:
Keegan Sawyer, Project Director, email: ksawyer@nas.edu
Cynthia M. Beall, PILS co-chair, email: cynthia.beall@case.edu
Dietram A. Scheufele, PILS co-chair, email: scheufele@wisc.edu
URL: http://nas-sites.org/publicinterfaces